Page 3 of 3

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 10:34
by pawel95
Oh whaaat a big topic now. Well I have beaten Vortamic in the release, lewin also showed how to do it "best", bence did it also like I remember.
When i searched replays for these misons i mean in kam remake after the shield patch, so its clear that vortamic could be won "way" easier in r2500 or sth like that.

I will watch Bences replay now, because I have really no idea how he could beat To the Capital :mrgreen:

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 10:37
by cmowla
Yeah, that's what I meant. My replay did that too. I clicked yes over and over, but it kept asking in more frequent increments until I couldn't watch it anymore. In addition, it actually killed all of my men. But my saved game file is OK.

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 10:40
by Bence791
Yes this bug causes the replay not to show "the actual truth", TDL was defeated in 10 minutes in his replay because of it, but the save's minimpa shows that he has won it :D

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 11:38
by The Dark Lord
Nah it depends, sometimes your ally screws up, but most of the time he seems to win, especially with some support (although I forgot about those units in the east :P). I don't know why the replay isn't functioning. Maybe because I loaded a savegame?

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 11:43
by Bence791
I also used savegames (the most important one was at 12 minutes, when the grey pikes came), so I guess that can't be the cause.

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 12:25
by Shadaoe
EDIT:
I just played the first minute of "To the Capital" on my PC (using r5503), and OMG. What!? The ally gets creamed, but when TDL played it, they kept 8 rogues and 12 barbarians? It looks like the difficulty/outcome isn't dependent on the version more than it might be on what type of CPU one has? Seriously. This was the typical outcome in casualties for me and my allies when compared to the enemy. That's why I didn't dare even fight the first army because I knew I probably wouldn't have enough soldiers to win the game. I'm confused...regardless, I'll still try to win this again with r5503 this time.?
That's randomness, and it's quite important in KaM's combat system. You have to force the odds in your favor.
Don't criticize this because it was the same in the original game ;)

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 19:11
by cmowla
I played "To the Capital" today (in r5503) for a real-game time of about 2 hours (so about 3 hours yesterday, my first time playing it and then 2 hours today), and I played a PERFECT game.

That is, I lost 0 men. The replay works all the way to the end. Enjoy! :D

Is this the first time someone has not lost any men and won "To the Capital" in r5503?

I admit, I did use the "break up all units into single ones" tactic that I saw Bence791 and TDL use in the replays they posted in this thread at the very end (when I was killing the last sword fighter group and the last knight group from the town to the northwest).

Lastly, my ally and I managed to destroy all buildings, and I completed the mission in a shorter time.

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 05 Aug 2013, 21:36
by The Dark Lord
Well good job, but if you would do it exactly the same you wouldn't succeed again. There were so many occasions where two units of the enemy were attacking one of yours, or where your ranged units were under crossbow fire (1 hit is enough to kill as you know)... This required a lot of luck and would fail 99/100 times. But nice tactic, I was much more agressive (trapping white in his own base, defending against pink at the bridge). I did use that spot at the left only when I ran low on melee troops, but for a better result I obviously should have stayed there from the beginning.
But yes, I bet this is the first time someone beats it without losing troops, so congratulations. :)

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 00:54
by cmowla
Thanks.

Comment about the two battles with my archers behind the rock.
I found that not only do infantry and cavalry die from getting struck from the back from axes, pikes, lances, or swords, but also arrows...so if you watch it again, there are only a few instances when my cavalry and infantry were in deep trouble, but an arrow from the back is what really killed the enemy fighters instantly (once they stop walking) in a subset of all such points of risk.

For example, take a look at when one of my barbarians was being struck by two pikes around 10:14: the second (surviving) pikeman would have had his final stab to kill my barbarian, but an arrow killed him from behind. Then take a look at how one of the enemy sword fighters moving straight down die instantly around 10:40. Archer positioning was key, as it was when I had knights in between the butcher's and the vineyard to kill the last sword fighter and knight groups from the town to the west. Because I won this single player map yesterday, I knew how to position my archers (behind the butcher's and vineyard...)...so in real time for this part of the game, I only lost one knight in two separate instances...one instance when when I didn't split up all of my knights into a single unit/leader between 30:30 and 31:03, and one instance when one of the three single/leader decided to ride forward into death for no apparent reason.

Comment about enemy crossbowmen shots against my artillery
The one arrow hit/archer dies scenario held true for the battles when I was behind the rock, but I am certain you are exaggerating my "luck", at least given the mere presentation/replay. In the below wall of text, I touch on every such occasion which occurred in this replay. There wasn't that many such instances.

I did have to start again several times due to the enemy crossbowmen killing my rogues (maybe 3 or 4 times I lost a crossbowman), but that's because I didn't do prevention maneuvers in time (moving my artillery out of harms way or didn't send my knights to kill them immediately). About 50% of the time in my experience, a crossbowman survives an arrow from another crossbowmen. That makes it about 25% to survive two arrows in a row. So I wouldn't call every hit-but-no-kill luck.

For the first battle behind the rock, there were only 18 enemy purple crossbowmen, and only two of these crossbowmen had fired at my crossbowmen, the first fired one shot at 6:16, and the second fired two shots at one of my crossbowmen starting at 6:25, but he managed to survive being hit by two crossbow arrows, 1 bowman arrow and a rogue rock before he finally died by getting hit by a second rogue rock. It took 5 hits for this guy to die, and my guy surviving after getting hit twice by one archer is pure luck?

The only other occasions of this happening is at 3:34 (and I didn't give these two crossbowmen a clear shot), and when I teased the 6 gray unit crossbowmen groups on top of the walls, the first group at 16:39 and the second at 19:16, which, again, I did not give them clean shots.

So I wasn't really that lucky with my surviving crossbowmen because I didn't give the enemy much of an opportunity even when they did fire.

Comment about losing my 4 knights (in a square formation) during the two behind-the-rock battles
I did not have to redo a fraction of the battle even once solely for the 4 knights (in a square formation and in one group) guarding the one man gap between the pebble and the wall. A few times I did lose one because one leaped out into the open due to me moving my archers next to them, but not separating them (keeping all 4 in a group) is what saved all of their lives because they could (and did) alternate front line position. And, when they alternated, they didn't get struck from the behind from the enemy because the pebble in the way slowed down the enemy soldiers from quickly sending the next enemy soldier in the one-man gap. (I watched the battle scene to verify this).

Comment about losing infantry and cavalry to other infantry and cavalry, in general
My play was almost perfect in these matters. The main factor was the positioning of my artillery, but I saved my soldiers with other soldiers attacking the enemy from behind on more than one occasion. You have to remember also that knights have become stronger...you'll notice that I rarely assigned my lance carriers and barbarians to front line positions.

Most importantly, I enjoy and always try to perfect my kill to lose ratio, so the tactic I used guarantees that one will not lose more than 20 units (at worst) should one use saves only to redo major losses.

In general, my kill to lose ratio is almost always at least 4 to 1 in missions which give me archers. I also play Age of Empires 2 the Conqueror's expansion, and my best kill to lose ratio in that game is literally 179.19 to 1 (I killed 3763 troops and lost 21) (on the hardest difficulty, playing against 5 players and having only 1 ally), but I average about 22 to 1, taking into account my very bad days and my very good days and all that is between.

So keeping as many of my units alive as possible is always a priority for me. With this particular single player game, I just exploited my passion.

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 04:31
by Ben
Impressive. You should play multiplayer, and we'll see if your combat expertise holds true against humans ;)

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 09:50
by dicsoupcan
Impressive. You should play multiplayer, and we'll see if your combat expertise holds true against humans ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdf5n-zI14

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 10:08
by The Dark Lord
Oooookay I didn't really expect a wall of text like that, and those red letters really make it look like I said some terrible things. :P I'm not trying to downgrade what you did, you did a great job, but I still think you've been lucky. :)
I've watched the replay again and noticed the following. Your melee units have been in trouble at 14:06, 14:23, 22:17, 28:23 and 31:24. On all these occasions one of your units was attacked by two of the enemy. Sure, they were under fire by your ranged units. But sometimes the ranged support was very minimal (due to firing on other units). Also, when two units attack one of yours, your unit can die with just a few strikes if you're unlucky.
About your crossbowmen being hit, I saw at least 3 clear shots on your crossbowmen, of which 2 shots on one of them. That's 3 times a, according to you, 50% chance to kill. Not mentioning how you tried to lure those crossbowmen off the wall and thereby getting hit as well (sure, you were walking, but if you're a bit unlucky you could still lose some units there).

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 14:51
by Ben
I'm pretty sure that we can all accept that luck has a significant role in the combat of KaM (because, afterall it does!).

Re: SEARCHING Replay of won SP missions ;-)

PostPosted: 06 Aug 2013, 16:08
by T*AnTi-V!RuZz
Topic locked on request by TS.